fotoplay: on the horizon 4

The newest pieces to arrive in my inbox for the Fotoplay Invitational were created by my friend Hannah. Remembering her earlier “Pixelated Icon” piece, one can see that she has again chosen to respond to my prompt by weaving. Here is the way Hannah describes her work and her process: I have really enjoyed reading your blog, and am happy to be a part of the Invitational. I have to confess that I when I saw your friend Barry’s work, and read his note to you, I felt a strange jolt. Maybe it was an attraction, maybe something else. I won’t go that deep into it, but I will say that I have not stopped thinking about his “face of love,” with its big blue heart. So I printed out your page and made the first weaving, which I called “Pixelated Cool Blue Love.”

After I made it, I felt that it was too overt and too simplistic, but not in a good way. So I remade it in red, and called it “Pixelated Warm Love.” Even then, I still felt like I missed some mark, so I thought about it for a few days and realized that a projected icon was a forced projection on my part, and that the sun is what everything’s all about.

So I printed a third page and made another piece, for which no title came. This is always a kind of supreme sign to me that I have created something inane. I looked at it for such a long time until I realized the problem. It felt crudely, wrongly bisected.

Then I made a fourth piece which is called “Pixelated God of the Sun.” This is the final piece. And it’s dedicated to your friend Barry.

I’m crazy about Hannah’s “Pixelated God of the Sun.” It’s modern and handmade, abstract and folksy. It makes me think that the big ball of heat and light that we all watch, rising and falling on the horizon, is not on the horizon. It’s not on a distant line. It’s here. Everywhere. In us. It permeates everything. It reaches through our pores, and settles into our cells. It’s connected to the core system of the energy inside of us. Our solar plexus. So What’s On The Horizon is here. It’s not out there. It radiates and pulsates simultaneously, at once from a distance and deep down inside.